Papandreou tries to prop up the pillars

摘要

Successive Greek governments have managed to hoodwink the European Union over the size of the country's budget deficit and its public debt by blaming their predecessors and then promising to do better. No longer. The European Commission's fury over a leap in the projected deficit for 2009 from 6.7% of GDP (the figure from the old centre-right New Democracy-led lot) to 12.7% (the figure produced by the new centre-left Pasok government) helped to trigger a collapse in the Greek bond markets and even provoke dire warnings that the country might go bust.